


Not For the Faint of Heart

by betheflame



Series: StarkBucks Bingo 2020 [5]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Powers, Alternate Universe - Royalty, Friends With Benefits, Getting Together, Grumpy Bucky Barnes, Idiots in Love, M/M, Past Bucky Barnes/Shuri, Strangers to Lovers, Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure, Tony Stark Has A Heart
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-06
Updated: 2020-11-02
Packaged: 2021-03-07 23:21:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 14,410
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26855857
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/betheflame/pseuds/betheflame
Summary: King James of Ballyglendore needs a tutor for his daughter, the Crown Princess Michelle, and ends up using a friend of his ex-wife, who also happens to be world famous technological inventor, Tony Stark.Two handsome idiots with a penchant towards emotional martyrdom in close proximity for an entire summer? Whatever is going to happen?
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Tony Stark, Michelle Jones/Peter Parker, Pepper Potts/Natasha Romanov, Steve Rogers/Sam Wilson
Series: StarkBucks Bingo 2020 [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1738231
Comments: 68
Kudos: 271
Collections: Bucky Barnes Bingo 2020, Numerous OTPS Infinite Fandoms, StarkBucksBingo2020





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Corsets_and_Cardigans](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Corsets_and_Cardigans/gifts).



> HAPPY BIRTHDAY HEATHER!
> 
> This fic started life as a prompt for a Bucky/Tony Royalty AU from Heather and a celebration of a subscriber milestone I hit recently. One-shot, nothing fancy, you know the drill. And then...
> 
> StarkBucks Bingo: B4 Single Parent  
> 

Bucky pinched the bridge of his nose, counted to five, and remembered that Shuri was his _ex-wife_ for a reason. “Less science, more English. What are you telling me?”

She snorted through her nose - the way she always did when she thought he was being stupid which was adorable when they started dating but quickly lost its luster after his coronation - and spoke slowly. “Michelle needs a tutor if she wants to go into engineering. My lack of formal training has come back to bite us here - I do not actually know the names of the theories or important dead white men she will be expected to know to gain entry in that world.”

Bucky heard the tone that was delivered with and grinned. “You also want to kill her a little.”

Shuri’s mouth twitched into a smirk and Bucky remembered why Shuri was his wife in the first place. “My mother tells me that fifteen was a hard age for me as well.”

Bucky snorted at all the things that _weren’t_ in that sentence. “I’m assuming you already contacted someone?”

She nodded. “I did not tell him it was for Michelle -”

“You understand that your insistence to call her that name and not MJ is one of the reasons you fight like alley cats, right?”

She arched an eyebrow. “All those fancy American boarding schools and the most elegant simile you can come up with for two women fighting are cats?”

“Shuri, I do actually have a kingdom to run.”

“Tony will be here on Monday if you agree to the plan,” she replied.

He nodded and calculated briefly what his Monday looked like. _I have the fisheries thing at ten, and that meeting with Steve that I can’t move again or he wins the bet, and then -_

“Bucky, are you listening?”

He shook his head. “Sorry, going over my schedule to see when I could meet him. It wouldn't be until after dinner.”

She nodded and pulled out her phone. “He’s flying in from New York, so he’ll want a little time to adjust to time zones anyway. Oh, and he’s bringing his nephew as well. Michelle’s age and supposedly also a genius, so perhaps she will learn humility.”

 _Not touching that,_ Bucky thought. “So is that all parenting matters out of the way?”

Shuri checked her phone, where he knew she had a list. She always had lists. “We discussed Tony, and her application to the summer program at Columbia for next year - which you will come to see my point of view on -”

“I’m not sending the sixteen-year-old heir to the Ballyglendore throne to live in Manhattan for an entire summer, Shuri,” Bucky said with a sigh. “I understand that she gets her own passions and her own dreams and I’m not trying to suppress them, but sixteen is an important year here and so my answer is no. She has a lot of state functions next year and I already have fourteen headaches an hour over the old timers thinking she has to be engaged by the end of it.”

“Lord Reilley still throwing fits that we turned down the betrothal?”

“Every fucking day, Shur,” Bucky confessed.

These were the pieces of his life that she hated - the royal pieces. When they met and got married, everyone assumed Bucky would inherit many years in the future and Shuri would have time to establish herself as a scientist outside of being an official entity of state. But then - three years into their marriage - Queen Winnifred started getting sick and never got better and by the time MJ was four, James Nicholas Buchanan Barnes was crowned King James IV of Ballyglednore, a small independent island kingdom off the southeast coast of Ireland.

And Queen Shuri, born Princess Shuri Bathandwa Cebisa of Wakanda and far removed from succession in her own country by her brother’s five children, slowly began to emotionally wither on the vine. Their fighting became legendary, and all of their friends advocated for divorce.

_“Buck,” Steve said quietly one night. “I’m saying this as your Captain of the Guard, and as your best friend. This is killing you.”_

_“I know.”_

_“Michelle does not need -”_

_“I know.”_

_“Then do something about it.”_

And so they did. When Michelle was seven, they hammered out a co-parenting arrangement that made headlines for its pragmatism. Shuri returned to Wakanda, where she set up a laboratory in experimental physics that drew interns and collaborators from all over the world. Michelle visited frequently, but never resided in Wakanda, because for all the ways that Shuri loved her daughter, they were oil and water and everyone knew it.

Shuri and Bucky’s deepest hope was that as Michelle grew and matured, she’d see the value of having a mother like Shuri, one who was brilliant and fair and loving, but not cuddly or doting the way Michelle saw her aunts and friend’s parents. But the jury was certainly currently out. 

Besides, Michelle Juliette Khethiwe Nomlanga Barnes was the Crown Princess of Ballyglendore and raising her to be both Michelle (or MJ, as she began to insist at the age of six) the human and Michelle the ruler required a lot of time with her dad.

Shuri and Bucky themselves settled into a deep and respectful friendship. They teased each other about their dating lives - nonexistent for each, but there had been someone on the horizon for Bucky before they found out he was actually a spy - they sniped the press, complained about the paparazzi, and still went on family vacation together every year like clockwork.

Still, though, co-parenting a teenager and ruling a Kingdom were not for the faint of heart and every time he had to talk to Shuri about a difficult decision with MJ that meant he’d be doing more of the emotional heavy lifting required in adolescent development, he got tired.

If he was ever allowed to be honest when someone asked him how he was, that would be his answer. Bucky Barnes was tired.

“Bucky, you disappeared on me again,” Shuri said.

“Sorry, Shur,” he shrugged.

Her face softened. “James, this is too much for you to do alone, you know that. I did not leave so that you would be single for the rest of your life. You’ve become far too much of a recluse since I left.”

Bucky snorted. “I’m a grumpy pain in the ass who is too tired to wank off most nights, much less actually date. My daughter is a genius who runs mental circles around me and wants to reform every single tradition we have without understanding where they came from and why people hold them dear. My ex-wife is also a genius but in totally different ways than my daughter which is just a _damn_ delight. And my best friend is being denied the right to adopt because I can’t get Parliament to move fast enough even though I am dragging them with every ounce of my being.”

“Lord Stafford?”

Bucky nodded and ticked names off on his fingers. “Lady Herman, Lord Albertson, Lord Coyle, and they’re all being bankrolled by the Duke of Albany.”

Shuri made the wanking off motion that they both did whenever Bucky had to mention Stanley Wainwright, the Duke of Albany, who counted Nigel Farage among his personal friends.

“Absolute monarchy looks more attractive every day,” Bucky said.

“You’d hate it,” Shuri replied blithely. “Do you really want to decide on tax rates and sanitation schedules? No, you want to make sure military action is a last resort - which is part of a King’s job - and make sure the people are safe and the social agenda is as progressive as the people want and not the aristocracy. Those are all in your purview.”

“I fucking hate when you’re right,” Bucky grumbled.

“I know, you put it in the divorce settlement.”

They grinned at each other and he reached under his desk and into his snack drawer. Offering her a bag of her favorite Irish crisps - Keogh’s Cheddar and Onion - and pulling out a bag of Tayto Smokey Bacon for himself, he smiled at her. “Now, tell me all about this ball T’Challa’s been tricked into hosting and every single detail of how much he hates it.”

* * *

“So, he’s what? My personal tutor? For how long?” MJ made a face at her dad. She already had too many dudes in her life telling her what to do. Why did they need to add an American?

Bucky shrugged. “His contract is for the summer. He’s bringing his nephew along as well, Peter, he’s your age and also into rewriting the laws of the universe, so maybe you’ll get along and make a friend.”

“Your weird obsession with me having friends is so old, Dad.”

He looked at her the way he did whenever she could tell he was thinking of her as his replacement and not his daughter. “This job is really lonely, Meej. I couldn't do it without your Uncle Steve and Uncle Sam. Aunt Becca’s great, but she’s not in the day-to-day of it all and doesn’t want security clearance for the military matters. She likes the pomp and circumstance that I hate and I love the actual governing that she does.”

“And you’re not legally allowed to consult with Mom,” MJ replied quietly.

“No, I’m not,” her dad said softly. “And so I just want to make sure that you learn how to trust people who aren’t our family, learn how to open up a little. I know it’s hard. I know I got lucky with Uncle Steve and that we’re an exception and not a rule, but I also know that Meghan and Harry are on your case about this, too.”

MJ remembered back to the last conversation she had with the formerly-kinda-still royal couple where Meghan told her to find a maid of honor, not a lady in waiting.

“I’ll try to make friends besides Orfhlaith and Bridget,” MJ grumbled, naming her two cousins.

“Just think about, sweetheart,” her dad replied. “There’s going to be a lot of things in your life they will not understand and they may not want to. There’s going to be other things that you can’t tell them because rules of state prohibit it. And, I’m just throwing this out there, some day you may want to date, because at some point you’re going to have to sort out the whole heir situation and that usually requires a partner of some kind.”

MJ rolled her eyes. From all the books she read and the American teen soap operas she secretly consumed, she knew it was odd for other parents to talk to their kids about dating and sex and kids at her age. She and her parents had starting talking about who she’d marry about four minutes after she hit puberty.

Her life really was the property of the state, of her people, of the legacy she was born into and she knew it.

It’s why it all terrified her.

“So when is my new overlord coming? And what’s his name, anyway?”

“Um,” Bucky dug out his phone and peered at the text from Shuri. “He’ll meet us for dinner on Monday night and his name is Tony Stark.”

MJ’s heart stopped. Did her dad really not know who that is?

“Tony Stark,” she said slowly, “as in Carbonell Technologies Tony Stark?”

Her dad’s brow furrowed. “As in this guy your mom met in that one semester of grad school she did at MIT.”

MJ rolled her eyes dramatically. God, her dad was such a muppet sometimes. “Dad. Tony Stark is the founder and CEO and genius and everything behind Carbonell Technologies. Him and his sister-in-law started it when they were 18 from a garage in Boston and now they’re, like, the best.”

“I thought the guy who ran Carbonell is named Edward Carbonell.”

“Right,” MJ said, impatient, “it was, that was the trade name for a while, but then it got revealed a few years ago that Tony created that name for himself so that no one would connect him with Stark Weapons Division and I cannot believe you don’t know this.”

“Meej,” her dad replied, exasperated, “I don’t always remember what shoe size you are when I check your receipts. Do you really think I can keep track of gossip?”

She glared at him. “What was the score of the first Liverpool match after Klopp became the manager?”

He rolled his eyes. “Nil-nil draw to the Spurs, and I get what you’re saying. But football is how I unwind. Monitoring international business gossip is not. That’s literally what I hired Sam to do.”

“Fine, fair, I guess,” she conceded. “But you hired Tony Stark to personally tutor me in engineering? Doesn’t he have other things to do?”

Her dad shrugged. “Ask your mom, I was just told this was happening and I have four major fights to have with Albany on Monday, so I haven’t really gone past that this _is_ happening.”

She nodded and pulled out her phone to text her mom while her dad returned to the stack of papers in front of him. He looked so tired.

The doctors all promised her that he was in peak physical condition, that he didn’t have any of the genetic markers of the thing that killed her grandma, and that he’d live a long and happy life and be on the throne for a long time. But none of them could tell her how long he could keep going when he looked like his soul was so damn tired.

* * *

“Where are we going?” Peter looked askance at Tony.

Tony sighed. “Ballyglendore. It’s off the coast of Ireland, but it’s an independent kingdom.”

“Like in a Hallmark movie?”

“I would assume there are gay people in Ballyglendore, but otherwise, yes.”

Peter snorted and went back to whatever he had been doing on his phone.

“Peter,” Nat called from the top of the stairs. “Can you take Molly for a walk?”

Peter scrambled up from his seat, all gangly limbs like his mom had been at his age. “Yeah, sure, Mom.”

Once Peter was gone, Tony went back to his work, but should have known that his sister would replace her son. “Can we talk about how you’re going to be living with Super Hot King?”

Tony side eyed her. “You are very, very committed to the lady thing, yes? Because otherwise, you should really give Pep a heads up.”

“I’m gay not blind,” Nat said with a snort. “And King James is fucking gorgeous.”

Tony was about to protest and feed her some line about how he was too committed to being a professional, but she’d known him since she was born. “I know. I used to tease Shuri about his eyelashes.”

“I didn’t know you were friends with the princess of Wakanda.”

Tony shrugged. “I am capable of keeping secrets.”

“How many NDAs?” She asked with a snort.

“Five.”

“And now she’s calling in what favor?”

He looked up from his hologram. “What do you mean?”

“You mean to tell me that you’re schlepping to a tiny island for the summer for shits and giggles?”

Tony smiled. “She’s worried about her daughter, and I know you guys want Peter to see the world a little, so it seemed like a win/win, to be honest. Plus, I could use some new creative projects - Pep’s been on me for months to update the circuit board in the MTS421 and I can’t quite figure out how to. Maybe this break will be what I need.”

His sister was quiet and peering at him in the way that made him very, very nervous.

“What?”

“When did you and Ty break up this time?”

He felt a blush creeping up but ignored it. “A month ago. But it’s for real this time, Nat. I’m not taking him back.”

She fell silent again, which meant she knew he was lying, but he wasn’t going to say anything and neither was she.

“You and Pep must be looking forward to some alone time, eh?” He said after he cleared his throat to get rid of the lump forming there at the thought of how much time he wasted on Tiberius Stone.

“We are,” Nat confessed. “We are going to miss him like we’d miss a limb, but we figure this is a once in a lifetime shot and he should take it. Plus, you know...”

She trailed off and Tony looked at his sister for a long beat. “He’s mine too, Tash. That’s why we did it the way we did. So that no matter what, he’s a Stark and a Potts and no matter where he goes or who he becomes, he’s all of us.”

Nat nodded. “This is just the first time we’ve really put that to the test, I guess.”

“At least this way, if he decides his teenage rebellion is due and he gets arrested for loose morals and looser women, he’ll have diplomatic immunity,” Tony quipped.

Nat rolled her eyes. “He’s my son, not yours.”

“Spoilsport.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bingo Fills:  
> StarkBucks Bingo: N4 “You Need to Leave”  
> 

“I’m just trying to update him on his daughter’s progress,” Tony protested to the stern guard.

“King James is disinclined to entertain visitors at this time, sir, you need to leave.”

Tony pinched the bridge of his nose. “I have been here for two weeks, four days, and fifteen hours and I have seen the king exactly once and my contract stipulates that I’m to update him on MJ’s progress every week. I’m honestly just trying to do my fucking job, man, so-”

“Ciaran, I’ll handle this,” a firm voice sounded from behind Tony and he spun to see the Captain of the Guard striding towards him. Tony gulped slightly because he looked like he could break Tony in half if he so chose - maybe even in the fun way.

“Sir,” Tony started as soon as the two were alone.

The other man shook his head. “I’m not a lord. Captain Rogers is fine, Dr. Stark.”

Tony fought to keep a straight face because he really shouldn’t be shocked that the head of security in the small nation would know who he was, but they hadn’t exactly been introduced. “Captain, I’m not trying to cause trouble -”

The Captain smirked. “According to MJ, that’s all you seem to want to do.”

Tony cracked a smile at that. “Good trouble, though. Her worldview is too narrow for the field she wants to go into. Engineering is an exercise in imagination and-”

“And Meej has been told she’s a square peg who needs to be a round one for most of her life,” Captain Rogers finished. “She’s my niece, for all intents and purposes, Dr. Stark. Trust me, I know how she is.”

And at that moment, Tony muttered one of the most ill conceived things ever to leave his mouth. “Well, I’m glad someone does.”

Captain Rogers’ eyes narrowed. “His Majesty cares for nothing more than his daughter, I can assure you of that, Dr. Stark.”

 _In for a penny…_ “Well he has a hilarious way of showing it as far as I’m concerned. My contract says I have to meet with him every three days to update him on MJ’s progress and he has cancelled or ghosted me for every single one. I have questions about budgeting and field trips and equipment and I can’t get any of them answered. I called Shuri, who told me that someone named Bucky was handling everything but I have no idea who that is, and as far as I can tell, I’m the only one in this country who is smarter than the princess so you better use me before you lose me.”

As Tony ranted, Captain Rogers’ face calcified into a thunderous expression and Tony fought a gulp.

“Dr. Stark,” Captain Rogers said through gritted teeth, “the amount of things you don’t know would astound you.”

“Well, I fucking love learning and I’m pretty quick on the uptake, so why don’t you give me a whirl, El Capitan.”

Instead of responding, Captain Rogers lifted his wrist slowly to his mouth. “Falchuck, is Conference C open?”

The answer presumably came in an earpiece Tony couldn’t see because a few moments later, Captain Rogers was indicating that Tony should follow him down a hallway. They emerged into a small, but well appointed conference room. Captain Rogers pointed at a chair and Tony took that as the command to sit.

“Dr. Stark, you don’t have the security clearance to answer all of your questions, but I can help you out with a few.”

Tony ground his teeth to keep his mouth shut. _Security clearance my ass. I’m on the NSC for fucks’ sake, I have clearance at Peterson, I’m cleared by MI6._

“As Captain of the Guard, allow me to inform you that King James has been overwhelmed in the last several weeks with an attempted political coup by some conservative members of the legislature. It was handily defeated but eliminating it has taken longer and has taken up much of His Majesty’s time. I know he is pleased with the progress you are making with Her Highness and would want me to pass on a carte blanche permission slip to do whatever you deem necessary. His silence is not indicative of his care, rather his exhaustion.”

Tony gaped a bit. This was not how he thought this was going to go.

“Now,” the captain smiled, a slightly feral sight that wasn't as warm as he probably hoped it was, “as his best friend, I have a few more words.”

Tony blinked rapidly. Something else he had not seen coming.

“I think you’re an ass, and I didn't love that pissing contest you tried to have back there, but my niece adores you and Buck’s in crisis mode which means he forgets a bit how to parent and King at the same time.”

“Buck?”

“Yeah,” Captain Rogers nodded. “That’s his nickname - Bucky.”

“King James is called Bucky? Does that translate better in Gaelic or something?”

Captain Rogers laughed. “No, especially considering Buck is shite at Gaelic. Mandarin, French, Japanese, and Spanish - he’s fluent. The actual language of his ancestors? He can ask where the bathroom is.”

Tony snorted. “Then what’s with the name?”

The other man waved his hand. “Childhood thing, we grew up together. Anyway, he can’t remember what day it is right now, much less that you’re in the country, so trust me when I tell you that he’ll say yes to basically whatever you want to do, as long as it doesn’t break the law or put MJ in danger.”

Tony calculated quickly. “I need a place where I can blow something up that’s larger than a breadbox but smaller than a rocket.”

Captain Rogers nodded. “We have a quarry on the southside of the island that I can arrange for use of, or the Irish government is usually amenable to MJ’s excursions.”

“What does that mean?”

“This answer is still from MJ’s godfather, by the way,” Captain Rogers clarified with a grin, “but my niece is curious and her mother believes diplomacy is for other people, so they used to galavant across the water and show up in Tipperary or somewhere and try to test a piece of tech out in a field that ended up having a few hundred cows and it was - as you Americans say - a whole thing.”

“What’s the answer of the Captain of the Guard?”

“That Her Highness, The Crown Princess Michelle, has experimental tourist privileges with several of our key allies for the purpose of furthering her education.”

Tony laughed. “I like the godfather answer better.”

“Most people do,” Captain Rogers confessed. “Now, it’s nearly midnight and while Buck is still in his office, we do close down official business in the palace at 10pm for the safety of the staff. I’ll be in touch tomorrow about getting you transportation to the quarry or another site and in the meantime, write down everything you want Buck to know and I’ll make sure it’s delivered.”

The blond man paused, as though he was debating what he was about to say.

“She’s happier with you here, Meej is. Because you’re right, none of the rest of us can quite keep up with her, and she and her mother aren’t close, Dr. Stark.”

“It’s Tony, please. I start looking for shareholders when you call me that.”

“Then it’s Steve,” Steve smiled. “My husband is cracking smart and so is Buck, but not in the ways Meej is, so thank you for challenging her. Whatever you need to keep doing that, you’ll have it. Just call me directly.”

They finalized some details of how Tony would get a hold of Steve and then Tony was shown out of the conference room and back down the corridor to his rooms. And he really was going to go back there, he was. But then…

But then a walk in the gardens seemed like a better idea to clear his head. He was still reeling from all the information that Captain Rogers - Steve - had given him. In the time since Tony had arrived in Ballyglendore, he had seen nearly every member of the King’s staff multiple times and had only seen the King once. Their first meal had been perfunctory and awkward, with the King’s brain a million miles away and his daughter’s agitation at that fact clear.

Tony had been informed by an aide that the legislative session that day had gone poorly and then read later in the week about an attempted political coup, but had been repeatedly assured that it wouldn't affect his work with the princess and so he should carry on.

And carry on he had. He, Peter, and MJ had quickly bonded and Tony was thrilled to see his nephew thriving in such a hands on environment. Prior to this trip, Peter had been saying he was going to major in molecular biology, but it seems his interest in physics and engineering has been peaked.

Or, that could just be the schmoopy teenage hormones that were threatening to drown Tony whenever he left the two of them alone for even a minute.

That had been what he wanted to talk to the King about.

“Hey Your Highness, Majesty, whatever,” Tony muttered to himself as he wandered through the apple grove, slowly meandering his way farther away from the castle entrance, “your daughter is super into my nephew but she’s playing coy and that’s driving him mad and I basically have an episode of _Saved By the Bell_ on my hands here, so can I get an assist?”

“Sounds complicated.”

Tony was brought up short by a voice behind him, in a lilting Ballyglendorian accent with a touch of gravel to it. It was familiar, but he couldn’t place it. He turned to see a man-shaped being laying on the grass under a tree. “I like wires. People wig me out.”

The laugh that emitted from the man was honeyed and in contrast with the rougher tone of the comment. “I’m exhausted by both wires and people, so I can’t help you, boyo.”

That voice is so fucking familiar. “What does not exhaust you then? Because that’s pretty much the summary of society.”

“Trees,” the man said simply. “If I could have any job in the world, I’d be a cider maker.”

“What’s stopping you?”

And then the man sat up and the moonlight caught his face.

“Approximately four hundred years of tradition and primogeniture,” King James responded.

“Fuck me,” Tony swore quickly. “I’m so sorry, Your Majesty.” He threw himself into an approximation of a bow and heard the King chuckle.

“Honestly, James is fine when I’m in sweatpants.”

Tony looked at where the other man was sitting. A blanket was spread on the ground and a phone was lit up with Spotify playing. Headphones were lying on the ground, as well as a fairy beat-up backpack.

“You wanna take a seat? I owe you about fourteen conversations, I think,” James said.

Tony nodded and wondered exactly how he was supposed to act sitting on the ground with someone who could probably legally have him killed.

“So, Stevie told me I’ve been being a shit dad,” James sighed as an opening. “He’s not wrong. I told you that first night that I’d be busy, but Meej is getting frustrated that I’m… anyway. You bad at sleep, too?”

Tony’s brain was pretty fast - one of the fastest on the planet, if the tests were accurate - but this whiplash was still a lot to take. “Yeah, since I was a kid.”

James nodded. “I was really good at it in the service, and then Shuri was a night owl and so I adjusted my sleep pattern to fit hers and the Meej was born and then…”

“And then,” Tony offered to fill the silence, “leadership and sleep aren’t often good friends.”

James snorted. “Not in my experience, no.”

“I get it a little, maybe,” Tony confessed. For some reason, the moonlight and the reality of being fully thrown off his game coaxed honesty out of him. “I started getting groomed to take over Stark Weapons when I was four, I think. At least, that was the first board meeting I was forced to attend and it just was never me. I can do the business side - the schmoozing and the networking and all that - but it’s not fun.”

“My Chief of Staff tells me you closed down the weapons company?”

“Ish,” Tony replied. “I sold it and demanded my name be taken off of it. I had the leverage because the other one grew so fast, so I got a really good lawyer. I sold it significantly undervalued on two conditions; first that they renamed it completely, and that they didn’t fire anyone for three years. I poached everyone I wanted for Carbonnell as soon as Dad died anyway, but… anyway. We had to do some layoffs in the early years and I still see their faces sometimes.”

“I used your guns,” James said quietly.

“I know,” Tony said. “We had your official military photo in the lobby of the building.”

“They were really, really good guns,” James continued.

“Fucking right they were,” Tony said and James laughed.

“So what do you do now?” James asked as he dug into the backpack. “Granola bar?”

“Sure,” Tony accepted with a shrug. “Mostly I build shit. Engines, joints, hydraulic pumps, motherboards. We’re working in a lot of artificial intelligence but all of that needs physical spaces to live in, which is what I’m working on with your daughter, actually. She’s got amazing ideas, but often can’t find the starting point on them because she’s thinking too abstractly and yet still too narrowly. She's got to learn that pragmatism isn't weakness.”

“That’s her mother,” James replied. “Shuri is a genius -”

“She is.”

“- but her brother is constantly complaining that he gets insanely advanced cloaking technology when what they really need is water filtration.”

Tony snorted. “One of my interns is building T’Challa a full filtration system and I wondered why. There’s my answer.”

“So MJ is doing well?”

“Honestly? She’s a dream,” Tony said. “Too smart for her own good, but you don’t have anyone her age who can keep up with how fast she spins, so I think she’s bored a lot and hides the boredom with indifference.”

“Wow, Dr. Freud, wanna lay that on any thicker?”

Tony laughed before he could stop himself. Every impression he’d had of this man had melted in about five paragraphs of conversation and he had no idea what to do with that. “If you can ever take a break from running things, you’d meet my nephew. Peter’s bored a lot, too, but he hides it differently. We’re working on making sure neither of them are bored.”

“Your nephew,” James said slowly. “My sister says they’re, how did she say it, sniffing around each other.”

“They are,” Tony confessed with a smile. “My sister Nat, she’s Peter’s mother and they text a lot, she says it’s fine, but… I mean, I love Peter, but he’s fifteen and an idiot.”

James snorted. “Meej is also fifteen and a little bit of an idiot. But from everything she says, she’s having fun and this is the last summer she really gets to do that. Starting next year, she’ll be bored for a whole host of new reasons when the state responsibilities pick up. So I’m inclined to let them be nerds together.”

Tony’s experience at parenting was limited to the times he tapped in to help Pepper and Nat, but he was absolutely expecting more of a push back from the father of a princess. He must have had a weird look on his face to match his incredulity, because James laughed.

“My mother was a really, really good queen, but an even better mother, and she taught me the trick of training your replacement and also parenting them. When I’m at official state meetings or in my office or doing any other business that affects my people, she is the Crown Princess Michelle. If the two of them want to actually date or something more significant, it does become a matter of state and we’ll have to deal with that then. But right now? I’m Meej’s dad and I trust her and your nephew seems like the most earnest weeun I’ve ever met and something tells me he’d castrate himself before he hurt her, so I say let them have fun for a bit.”

Well, fuck, that was the perfect answer. “He’s a good kid. His moms did well.”

Instead of responding to that, or inquiring about the ‘moms’ statement, James took a long sip from a thermos and then changed the subject. “You seem to know a lot about how MJ’s brain works. Were you bored a lot?”

 _Who the fuck is this guy?_ “I started building my own computers in kindergarten.”

“That was the year I had to memorize our lineage back four generations,” James replied.

“Well, James, that’s -”

“Bucky, actually,” the other man interrupted.

“Gesundheit?”

James laughed - a full throated, full bodied activity that unlocked something in Tony. It sounded different than any laugh Ty had ever done, different than his own, even. It aroused him and settled him at the same time and he did not care for whatever magic the apple orchard in Ballyglendore was casting.

“My friends and family, they call me Bucky.”

“Steve mentioned something,” Tony confessed, “but I wasn’t -”

“Meej said you like nicknames.”

“I do.”

“Then you should use mine.”

* * *

Bucky lost track of time for how long they were out there. Ten minutes? Two hours? He wasn’t entirely sure.

“Steve knows I come out here, and so does Sam,” Bucky said quietly. “The rest of the guard and everyone thinks I’m in my office or in bed. There’s a tunnel that goes from my closet to a shed over there that everyone thinks is the entrance to a nuclear bunker and can only be opened with Steve’s handprint.”

“Not true?”

“It’s a bolt that we bought for about five euros the last time we were in Dublin,” Bucky replied. “But the myth is pretty powerful.”

Tony laughed and Bucky felt it go straight to his cock. He needed to hear that sound forever - and any others he could wring out of this man. Every parenting instinct in him said that to sleep with his daughter’s tutor was the worst idea, but nearly every human one was saying that Tony was the perfect candidate for a fling. They’d been subtly flirting for a while - double entendres and long glances - and Bucky could tell Tony was interested. There was an expiration date on his proximity and he’d already signed about fifteen hundred NDAs to even live in the palace.

“I come out here every night it’s not raining, and when it is, I head to the billiard room in between my room and the office.”

“I had no idea you loved billiards, Your Majesty,” Tony said, his voice heavy with something that told Bucky the man knew what Bucky was doing here.

“Can’t fucking stand them,” Bucky said simply, “but there’s a bed and it’s soundproofed and billiards has been the official hobby of Buchanan men for generations.”

“What’s the actual hobby of Buchanan men?”

“As far as I can tell from the private letters? Wringing as many orgasms out of life as possible.”

“Great hobby.”

“I’ve always thought so.”

* * *

That first night had been flirting with words heavy with promise and looks that foretold the next several weeks of Tony’s life. It had ended with a kiss and a handjob in the open air that had set quite the precedent.

Turns out that His Royal Highness King James IV of Ballyglendore and the House of Barnes was a kinky fucker with a filthy mouth and an obsession with Tony’s ass.

“James.”

Bucky looked up at Tony from under his eyelashes, Tony’s dick stretching his cheeks.

“Baby, I’m going to come, and I’m going to come hard.”

Bucky’s response was to snake a finger to Tony’s hole and crook it inside.

Turns out that King James was also a world class swallower.

* * *

“Are you and Peter having dinner with me and Dad tonight?” MJ asked.

“I don’t know,” Tony said, with a hint of confusion in his voice. “We haven’t been invited, I don't think.”

MJ made a face and walked to the wall where the intercom button sat. “Mrs. Coyle?”

_“Yes, dear?”_

“Dad forgot to add Tony and Peter to the list again. This is the fourth-”

_“Princess Michelle, I’ll take care of it presently.”_

“Thanks, Mrs. Coyle!”

Tony was completely confused until about fifteen seconds later when his phone started buzzing with incoming calendar invitations.

“That’s the calendar that Uncle Sam and Uncle Steve and Aunt Becca and Uncle Declan are on,” MJ explained. “Dad forgets to invite people to things and also, in general, to eat, so we came up with this system a few years ago. Any time that’s open to family/friends is on that calendar and he has to agree to be there, emergencies notwithstanding.”

“Huh,” Tony said and heard a snort over his shoulder. He whipped around to see Peter typing away on his cell phone. “What’s that noise, Squirt?”

“Genius is often inspiration borrowed, right?”

“You did not tell your mothers about -”

And then Tony’s phone started pinging again. He groaned as the two teens laughed.

“Sucks to be loved, I guess,” MJ grinned.

* * *

“Tony,” Bucky hissed. “We are going to get caught.”

“Not if you don’t lose the bet,” Tony said from underneath Bucky’s desk.

_“Five euros says that you’d break.”_

_“You keep my cock in your mouth for an entire meeting with the King of Homophobia and I promise you I will not break,” Bucky replied._

_“Five euros and letting MJ order the oysters on Friday night says you will.’_

_“Oh, you’re playing dirty, Stark, bringing my daughter into this.”_

_“All’s fair in love and fuck buddies, Your Highness.”_

The guard announced the arrival of Lord Albany and Bucky soon discovered that having a minor distraction when hearing his best friend called a ‘deviant’ was actually pretty good for his blood pressure.

* * *

“So, it’s just sex?”

Bucky looked up over the policy documents he was reviewing to see Sam enter his living room.

“And good evening to you too,” Bucky replied drolly.

“It’s just sex, right? I don’t have to start politically strategizing to tell the country about you getting a husband?”

“Stand down, Mr. Wilson,” Bucky said and went back to his document.

“Your Majesty -”

“No,” Bucky put down the papers he was holding and speared Sam with a look. “If you want to know about my sex life, that’s my friend Sam. If you want to know about political fallouts, that’s my Chief of Staff and we are nowhere near the idea of politics right now. I’m having a summer fling with a man who is disappearing in nine weeks and that’s that. No one knows.”

“I know and Steve knows and Dr. Stark knows.”

“You know because your husband can’t keep a secret from you to save his life, your husband knows because we ran out of condoms last weekend and I needed your stash, and Tony knows because I’m not into non-con.”

“Bucky,” Sam said slowly.

“It is just a fling, Samuel,” Bucky ground out. “Is that all?”

Sam peered back and Bucky had a feeling he was in trouble. “What’s the food he eats when he’s sad?”

Fifteen years ago, when Sam and Steve were getting together, Bucky and Sam had talked about when you knew you loved someone and when you knew you were in it with someone.

_“There’s a taxonomy of knowledge,” Bucky had - tipsily - pontificated. “Like, you love someone when you know their favorite food and how to get it for them. You are in it with someone when you know the food they eat when they’re homesick, or sad.”_

_“Steve eats shepherd’s pie when he’s sad,” Sam replied instantly._

_“Yes he does, my good friend. Yes he does.”_

Bucky stared at Sam and knew he was clenching his jaw. “It’s been five weeks, Samuel.”

“That’s not an answer, James.”

It was a standoff worthy of the O.K. Corral before Bucky licked his lips. “You’re dismissed, Mr. Wilson.”

Sam cocked an eyebrow as he made his way out the door. “You’re only fooling yourself, Buck.”

_Pizza with bacon and fresh tomatoes, the way his nanny and he would make whenever he had a bad day with his dad._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Join us next time where Bucky and Tony continue their game and MJ and Peter inch closer to becoming a matter of State.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to everyone who has been kind and encouraging about this Alternate Universe. I know I don't often write WI, but I'm going to be writing more, so if you like how I frame them, please let me know!

“So, what,” Peter asked MJ over the top of the model they were building, “your dad picks your husband?”

“No,” MJ scoffed. “Well, kinda.”

Peter’s response was a cocked eyebrow and MJ continued. “The law is pretty loose - I have to marry by the time I’m 30 or have alternative arrangements made for heirs. Mum and Dad had me when they were in their early 20s and Dad’s said for a long time that I should think about 25 because that gives me enough time to raise both the child and the replacement and enjoy both.”

“That’s morbid,” Peter replied.

“It’s my life,” MJ said simply. “When I find someone I want to marry, I present them to Dad first - although, because we’re us, he’ll know already but there’s still a ceremony and everything - and then to the Privy Council, which is pretty much like presenting them to my aunts and uncles. All of that will go fine, because if Uncle Steve thinks anyone isn’t good for me, I’m fairly sure they’ll disappear off a coast somewhere before we get to this point.”

Peter started laughing and then abruptly stopped. “You’re not laughing.”

“I’m not joking,” MJ replied with a smirk. “You haven’t really hung out with Uncle Steve. We’ll fix that, he’s fun to fuck with.”

Peter’s look was skeptical and she swallowed a giggle. “That’s all the easy stuff, for me anyway. Dad said Grandma had a really hard time with a few members of her mom’s Privy Council, but both he and I were okay. Dad had a few protests because Mum was so career focused, but Grandma evidently shut them down. And Dad’s council has basically helped raise me, so I’m not nervous about them. I am nervous about the next step.”

“What’s the next step?”

“Public vote.”

“WHAT?!”

“They technically don’t have a say over who I as a human marry, but they have a say on who is brought into their royal line,” MJ hurried to explain. “So if it’s a no vote, I can still marry whoever I want, I just remove myself from the official lineage.”

“And remove yourself from the job you’ve been preparing for since you were, what, in the womb?” Peter asked. “That seems extreme.”

“We’re a small country,” MJ explained. “We have about a million people knocking about the island and I’m not completely convinced they didn’t also mess up and count sheep in that number. It’s not hard for me to spend time with my future spouse with the people and helping them get to know each other. If Dad chooses to remarry, he’ll have to do the same thing, by the way.”

“So your mom was paraded all over the island?”

MJ laughed. “Some of my absolutely favorite pictures of my parents are from some of those trips. Right after they started dating, there was a big sheep sheering festival and Dad took Mum along. She was fascinated - they have lots of goats in Wakanda, but not sheep - and she showed up the next year with a completely new sheering system and basically everyone who owns sheep on this island told Dad they’d choose her over him.”

Peter laughed. “How did everyone handle it when they split, then?”

“You should ask Aunt Becca,” MJ replied. “The official historical records are that everyone handled it well.”

“The unofficial?”

MJ blanched a bit. “It was a little ugly for a little while. I don’t like to talk about it, if that’s okay.”

“Of course it is,” Peter rushed his words. “I’ll ask Princess Rebecca.”

The look he got whenever he used any of their titles passed over his face and MJ’s breath caught. They’d be having totally normal conversations and he was treating her like a normal person, not like royalty, and then she’d so something to remind him of titles and he’d freeze for a minute.

The past two months had been - as far as MJ was concerned - a dream. She loved working with Tony, even when he was an egomaniacal pain in her ass. He pushed her like no one else ever had and she actually wasn’t sure how she was going to return to ‘normal’ school when he left. Because he didn’t just push her in physics or engineering or the principles of gravity - he pushed her to think about how her inventions could practically help or hurt people.

_“Okay, so the bridge is good for the farmers. Who is it bad for?”_

_She glared at him. “No one. It’s a bridge.”_

_“Michelle.”_

_He only used her full first name when he thought she was being stroppy, so she sighed and tried to think. “Honestly, Tony? It’s a bridge.”_

_“What does a bridge sit over?”_

_“Water,” she said slowly, as though he was addled._

_“And what lives in water?”_

_“Oh fuck, I have to check migration patterns of the salmon and with the fisherpeople about the mussels.”_

_She caught the smile on his face when she finally put the puzzle pieces together and it never failed to make her sit up just a little straighter._

And then?

Then there was also Peter.

Peter with his awkward fumbling and his earnest smiles. Peter with the way he called both of his mothers every day no matter how busy they were. Peter with how he still swallowed his tongue whenever someone reminded him that MJ was a princess, as though he was so used to thinking of her as a human it was a shock every single time.

Peter that she had fallen so hard for she nearly had bruises.

Peter who she could never have because he was absolutely too smart to saddle himself to her life.

“So do you have prospects or anything?” Peter asked. “A list of minor royalty from around the world?”

MJ shrugged. “Dad’s been in negotiations with Denmark for a few years, I think, but the guy they’re talking about for me is about three years younger and that creeps me out right now, so we’ve agreed to not talk about it until the kid is 21. I have several jokes with Kate that I’m just waiting for George to grow up, but they’re just jokes because the British Royal family is like a giant bucket of yikes.”

Peter snorted.

“But no, not really,” she concluded. “I’m not good with people.”

Peter’s face screwed up in confusion. “You’re great with people. You’re great with your family and Uncle Tony and me -”

“Yeah, well, you’re different,” MJ confessed softly and was gratified to see a blush spread across Peter’s cheeks.

Maybe he wasn’t too smart after all?

* * *

“I don’t like it,” Steve said to his husband one evening in early August.

“Sweetheart, there is so much about our lives I don’t like you are going to have to narrow things down,” Sam replied.

“Buck and Tony,” Steve clarified.

“Oh, no, me either,” Sam agreed. “But we’ve also had this conversation fourteen, maybe fifteen, thousand times and Buck’s got his head in the sand.”

“And in Tony’s ass,” Steve mumbled.

“I mean, it’s a great ass,” Sam said with an eyebrow raise.

Steve opened his mouth as though to retort and then shook his head. “It really is.”

Sam chuckled, low and rumbly. “He is fighting so hard for you and me that I’m honestly happy he has someone that he can unwind with. I don’t love that it’s an American civilian.”

“That he’s in love with,” Steve finished.

“And that he has no idea he’s in love with,” Sam continued.

“That’s what I don’t like,” Steve replied. “I don’t like that he’s…”

“I know.”

“What do we do?”

“Well, that’s an interesting question,” Sam said, stretching back into Steve on their couch. “As his two best friends, absolutely fuck all. And you, as Captain of the Guard, also fuck all. But me? I can start preparing for the fall-out.”

“The fall-out?”

“Our boy,” Sam sat back up and spun himself so he was facing Steve, “is a hopeless romantic and also an idiot, true or false.”

“True.”

“So he is going to forget, or already has, that he has slept with exactly two people prior to this in his adult life and has fallen for each so hard that when it fell apart we had to scrape him out of the nest of wallowing he built for himself and Max lasted even shorter than this and he never introduced him to Meej.”

“True,” Steve replied again.

“So strategize with me here, sweetheart, what is going to happen when Tony leaves?”

“Oh, he is going to crumble,” Steve said matter-of-factly, “that’s why I don’t like it.”

“We passed Max off as a flu and sent MJ to be with Shuri for a week, but she was eight and she played with the goats and her cousins and didn’t ask any questions, really. The nation just thought their king needed fluids and rest and Meej thought her dad was vomiting everywhere and that was that,” Sam said. “Easy peasy lemon squeezy.”

“But now, we have a teenager and even more intense social media,” Steve said with a groan.

“Correct. And Royal Watch,” Sam said, referencing the Twitter account that was the literal bane of their existences, “will absolutely know that it’s not a flu within about a day since they’ll demand medical records and falsifying those is a bridge too far.”

“So what’s the plan?”

“Several options,” Sam said. “First is that I have an actual talk with them both as a political strategy and work out a way for them to keep seeing each other in secret. If they never appear in public together, no one else will see their schmoop eyes and we just have to worry about leaks. MJ’s education is something the public is rabid about and they are pretty protective of her. If someone starts slandering her tutor that she’s told every media outlet she adores, I think the public will help us out here.”

“Well, I actually kind of like that,” Steve confessed.

“Thank you,” Sam said. “I am good at my job.”

“You are,” Steve said with a soft smile. “What’s the other plan?”

“Well, several are derivations of that, but then I have the super-secret-best-friend plan.”

“Which is?”

“Lock them in a room, make them confess their actual feelings, and work out the legalities of having a Prince Consort who lives in New York.”

“That one has serious merit,” Steve said with a smirk.

“And that’s the one you’re about to work the hardest on,” Sam said with a chuckle.

“I deeply value our future children’s godfather’s happiness, love” Steve said evenly.

“You’re a little shit-stirring bastard, but whatever you tell yourself is fine, baby,” Sam replied.

* * *

Bucky drew a sharp breath.

“Careful, Your Majesty,” Tony breathed against Bucky’s dick. “What’s on your head is very valuable.”

 _He’s not kidding._ Bucky wasn’t referring to the crown jewels, however.

Bucky was on his throne and Tony was on his knees, giving Bucky one of the best blowjobs of his life and fulfilling one of Bucky’s naughtiest fantasies. There was only one thing missing.

“Wanna up the degree of difficulty?” Bucky said, with as much tenderness as he could muster when he was staving off an orgasm.

“What will the East German judge think?”

Bucky reached to the box next to him and pulled out another crown. The one that Bucky’s spouse would wear - should he ever get a new one. They’d retired Shuri’s crown to the vault and Bucky had commissioned the royal jeweler for a fresh one in a wave of optimism during the early days with his last fuck buddy. Thank god he’d never given it to Max, however, because then…

Then he really couldn't have done what he was about to.

With his dick still in Tony’s mouth, he leaned slightly forward and perched the crown on Tony’s head. Tony froze and pulled off Bucky.

“Is that what I think it is?”

“It’s not anyone else’s,” Bucky said quickly. “It’s a fresh commission, I just… You asked me the fantasy. This is it. Both of us in crowns.”

Tony peered at him from under the lashes that drove Bucky to distraction. “Okay.”

Something heavy was in the air and Bucky was slightly afraid to breathe. Just because James the Human had fallen so hard for Tony that he could barely see the sun anymore didn’t mean that King James IV had any business pretending it could be more than fuck buddies.

If Michelle was twenty years older and ready to take over, Bucky was potentially ready to abdicate over the possibility of this man, that’s how much he was into him. But MJ was 15, and nowhere near ready, and James Rex was four hundred thousand times more important than James Barnes.

So he knew what the air was heavy with, he could read the looks Tony gave him when they were alone, but there was no way in hell anything could get said out loud. So he rushed out response.

“If it’s too much, you can… I know this is odd, I know…”

Tony’s response was to swallow Bucky whole again and shift himself closer so that he could cup Bucky’s balls as well.

“Okay, so maybe not too much, okay, wow, this is hotter… oh Jesus, when you do that… Tony, I am going to… oh god, oh god, oh… I am going to get hard the next council meeting… I did not think this…”

He gasped for air as he came down Tony’s throat and nearly blacked out. He wasn’t someone who orgasmed all the time from a blow job - a fact that Tony had taken as a personal challenge upon discovering. Once Tony was done, Bucky bent slightly again and helped Tony scramble up into his lap. The throne was basically a seat and a half, wide enough to seem intimidating and also so that Bucky could arrange all of his stupid ceremonial robes and not feel like was wrapped in a cocoon while doing so. Which meant there was ample room for him to have a lap full of genius while he came down from his orgasm.

“I’m not good with feelings,” Tony said softly a few minutes later. “I don’t have that thing that lets people say what they feel, but that was… That was special, right? You didn’t do that with Max, did you?”

Bucky shook his head.

“Buck,” Tony whispered. “What are we -”

Bucky cut him off with a kiss. “We agreed, no future talk. No DTRs, no anything that wasn’t fun or fucking. You welching now, Stark?”

A look passed over Tony’s face that Bucky was terrified to investigate. After several heavy moments, Tony blinked and smiled. “No, Build-a-Buck, just got caught up in the hormones. Right as rain on this side of the blowie and also wondering how long I get to keep this for.” He gave the crown a jaunty tap and Bucky chuckled.

“I have a few other fantasies we could explore, but not here because your knees look a little bruised, baby.”

“Spoiler alert, baby, you usually have dudes fully clothed when they kneel on the knighthood pillow.”

“True,” Bucky said slowly, “but I have very specific kinks and public defilement of sacred traditions isn’t one of them.”

“But private defilement is?”

“Are you kink shaming me, Anthony?”

“Wouldn't dream of it, James. But I am dreaming of a shower and maybe some cream or ointment for this corduroy burn.”

Bucky laughed and pushed Tony off his lap. As he grabbed the robes they had worn down to the throne room from his private chamber, he gave Tony a quick kiss. “That can be arranged, humble peasant.”

“How magnanimous, Your Majesty.”

“I am a giver.”

“No, you’re a receiver,” Tony winked and then started to run as Bucky gave chase.

* * *

“Uncle Tony?”

Tony had three and a half weeks left on his contract when Peter came to him late at night with a look on his face that this was going to be A Conversation.

“Yeah, Squirt?”

“I really like MJ.”

Tony sighed. That wasn’t a revelation. “I know, bud. But Crown Princess, remember?”

“I know,” Peter said as he collapsed dramatically on the couch next to Tony. “But human being, too, right?”

God, ain’t that the question of the hour. “Honestly, Petey, I think the answer is no. I think she and her dad are never allowed to be fully human and make totally human decisions. Her cousins might be different and Princess Rebecca seems like she has some leeway, but I think MJ and Bucky are both quite limited.”

Peter sighed the sigh of put-upon teenagers everywhere and stayed quiet for a few minutes. “You love him, don’t you.”

It was a statement, not a question, and it was coming from the kid whose observational powers probably had him on the fast track for a CIA gig, and also from the kid who Tony loved more than anything in the world, and so obfuscating just seemed pointless.

“I think I do, yeah,” Tony confessed. Peter brightened and Tony put up his hand. “Slow down, Speed Racer, he’s the King of Ballyglendore and our family lineage doesn’t exactly mesh well with that and they got laws and nonsense and no. It’s been a good summer and I hope we stay friends.”

“But -”

“And if you tell your moms, I will actually be angry, okay?”

Peter’s face fell.

“Did you already tell your moms?”

“I told them I thought you had feelings for him,” Peter mumbled.

Tony pinched the bridge of his nose. The last thing he needed was for his sister and sister-in-law to meddle. “Can we keep the confirmation between us?”

Peter nodded and then changed the subject. “Can I put on _Schitt’s Creek_?”

Tony threw him the remote. “Sure. As good a distraction as any.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Join us next time for the last week of Peter and Tony's time in Ballyglendore


	4. Chapter 4

Bucky found them all in the gardens, hovered around a large picnic table Tony had built earlier in the summer. MJ’s hair was thrown into some sort of knot on top of her head, which meant it was itchy and she was probably going to need to go to a salon soon to get it moisturized - she wasn’t ever diligent about her own haircare and it was one of things as a white father he struggled with reminding her to do. Peter’s hair was also standing up as though he just rolled out of bed and Bucky wondered if the trio had pulled an all-nighter.

He had, which is why all he knew about the trio was that Steve assured him they were safe and he shouldn’t worry. Which was good, because the discovery of an armed plot to overthrow him was enough to think about.

So he was a bit on edge, he would admit, as he approached the table. He let his gaze linger on his daughter, taking in how she seemed… lighter than she had, how the guarded expression she usually wore melted in the presence of those two men, how she nearly bounced with energy about the project they were working on. Tony had her designing an entirely new kind of bridge to span a particularly troublesome lake they had on the northside of the island. The silty nature of the soil combined with the type of kelp that lived in the lake meant that building a permanent structure was challenging. Exporting the kelp was a huge part of their economy, but driving around the lake added 45 minutes on a single lane road for the export trucks. Bucky had off-handedly told Tony that he would love him forever if he built a bridge (while his cock was still lodged inside Tony, so he only vaguely remembered the conversation). Tony had taken it as a personal challenge and had spent most of the summer working with MJ on cross-water structures.

He heard their laughter, punctuated by words he didn’t understand and didn’t pretend to, and his soul settled more and more as he approached them. If he added Becca and her family, and then Sam and Steve, he’d have…

He stopped abruptly.

He’d have everyone on the planet who was the most important to him, save Shuri, in one place.

Tony and Peter…

He shook his head, as though to clear that idea. “Barnes,” he muttered to himself, “you don’t get that. You’re just torturing yourself.”

But then Tony’s entire face lit up when he saw Bucky approaching and all of Bucky’s resolves melted. He was going to pine after Tony Stark for the rest of his life, he could just tell.

“Hiya Rexie,” Tony said with a grin. “Your girl was just explaining the mating habits of clams to me.”

“Well, I am so sorry I missed that,” Bucky replied as MJ stuck out her tongue at him. His daughter was playful again and it would kill something in him if that went away when Peter did.

“You look terrible, Dad,” MJ said.

“Thank you, sweetheart, I’m seeing a new barber.”

“You should behead him.”

“I’ll take it into consideration.” Bucky settled on the bench next to Tony and felt Tony press his thigh into him. Bucky was aware the kids knew what was going on - no one was secretive enough to get anything past his daughter - but there was also no need to flaunt it, no matter how much he wanted to grab Tony’s hand and sink into his side and forget about being king.

“This is a temporary stop off or do you get a break?” Tony clarified.

“I’m actually here to collect Meej,” Bucky said, “but I thought I could sit for a minute.”

MJ checked her watch and groaned. “I hate dress fittings.”

“I know,” Bucky said, “and I don’t care.”

“Do you see it as your job to torture me?”

“No,” Bucky said with a grin, “just one of the perks.”

She scowled at him while Peter and Tony laughed. “Is this for the whole season or just the Harvest Gala?”

Bucky shrugged. “I don’t exactly know what Mrs. O’Dowd has in mind, but whatever it is, you’ll be respectful -”

“ - and with comportment befitting the Crown Princess,” MJ finished. “You know I’m only this way with you, right?”

“I do,” Bucky replied, “but one day you’ll slip and you’ll be sassy to the Daily Mail and then I’ll never find anyone to take you off my hands.”

MJ gasped in mock horror. “Peter, get me the Daily Mail on the phone immediately. I have sass to spew.”

As the banter continued, Bucky ignored the constant buzzing from his phone that signaled that Steve was trying to get a hold of him, but he knew Tony felt it, too. After a few moments, Tony leaned into to whisper in his ear.

“She doesn’t know yet, I promise. Steve’s office called me this morning to fill me in. The whole staff has been informed, Buckybear. She’s mentally safe from this for a bit longer.”

If Bucky had the energy, he would have cried. How did this man know him so well already?

Bucky simply nodded so Tony knew he’d been heard.

“But if I have to look Rogers in the face later, I’d rather not have to tell him the vibrations from your phone feel like our favorite toy and how I came in my pants in front of my nephew from a Pavlovian reaction to your presence, so could you kindly answer the fucking phone?”

Bucky pursed his lips to keep from laughing and turned his head. He took a risk and kissed Tony briefly - which both kids ignored polititely - and then rose from the table. “Meej, let’s go.”

“I have twenty minutes!”

“Meej.”

“The clams will wait,” Tony said gently and MJ huffed but followed her father.

If only that was the hardest battle of Bucky’s day.

* * *

“Your Majesty,” Sam interrupted.

“NO,” Bucky roared. “I said no.”

“And I told you I don’t give a flying fuck,” Steve growled. “This man wants to kill you, Buck. Do you understand that? He doesn’t want to just make your life difficult, he wants to kill you and take the crown for himself.”

“He doesn’t have the balls,” Bucky snapped.

“He has the cash,” Sam replied evenly.

It was only eleven hours since the moment of lightness he had at the picnic table, but it felt like eleven years. In the interlude, Sam had managed to confirm beyond the shadow of a doubt that Lord Albany had hired the intruder they’d captured the evening before and paid for Bucky’s assasination.

Sam and Steve wanted him to have Albany arrested immediately on the grounds of treason. Bucky didn’t want the scandal.

“Your Majesty, I speak on behalf of the people of Ballyglendore -”

“Steven, listen to the words coming from my mouth. Albany has been trying to overthrow me since Max. He’s roused the rabbles and has incredible political and financial support from the fundamentalists all over Europe and the U.S. who seem to think that because I like a dick in my ass I am unfit to be King. This is known. It’s openly talked about.”

“Your point, Buck?”

“He’s not alone,” Bucky said simply. “He has a mass of followers and I do not believe that they would not celebrate my death.”

Both men blinked at him.

“This still doesn’t explain why I can’t arrest his ass,” Sam said.

“Because it’s bigger than him,” Bucky said, “and if we arrest him, what if someone goes after Michelle?” Bucky’s voice caught on the last word.

“No one can -”

“This whole thing is a hydra monster, like from mythology, and I know he’s not the leader. If we only cut off the head, another will spawn and it’ll be angrier. We have to cut off all of them at once or kill the source.”

Sam paused, appearing to consider what Bucky said. “I disagree, but part of this is that I legally can’t act without you, so if you’re being stubborn, then we’ll do it your way. Fine. So how do we go after the source?”

“You could go public with Tony,” Steve said quietly.

“Excuse you?” Bucky said.

“One way to cut it out completely is confirm what he keeps implying,” Steve continued. “Max was a dalliance, a nothing. Tony is -”

“Don’t you dare say it -”

“- your endgame and everyone in this room knows it, so let’s stop with the fiction that he’s a fling.”

Bucky said nothing, and had to grind his teeth together to accomplish that.

“If you marry him - “

“No.”

“- then we will call all the assholes on their bluff. They’ll escalate, I’m sure, but once -”

“Fuck off, Stevie,” Bucky roared, not able to contain it any more. “You just offered an American civilian as bait for my assassins to take so that we can catch them more effectively. Can you hear the words coming out of your mouth? I get blind loyalty to-”

“Hey!” Steve snapped. “Okay, so that’s a shitty rough draft of an idea, fine, but -”

“I love him, okay,” Bucky exploded. “Is that what you wanted to hear? Fine. FINE. I love him. I love everything about him, even the ways he makes me furious. Which is why, under zero circumstances, am I subjecting him to the dog and pony show that is my life. I will remain single until Meej reaches majority and then I’ll abdicate quietly and spend the rest of my life helping her be better than me. That’s the plan, that has always been the plan, and that will remain the plan as long as there is breath in my body. Steven Grant and Samuel Douglass, do I make myself clear?”

The two other men clearly looked like they were going to throttle Bucky, but he didn’t care. This was how he was going to keep his sanity.

“I will spend the rest of my reign making sure you two get to be dads,” Bucky continued. “That was my promise to you and to Shuri and to MJ. That’s what I’m focused on, with every piece of social capital I have and I’m not spending it on Tony.”

“Did you check with him on that?” Sam asked, crossing his arms and widening his stance in what Bucky called ‘Sam’s Don’t Fuck With Me’ pose.

“I did not,” Bucky snapped, “because he doesn’t know this world. How can I ask him to say yes to anything this foreign?”

“He’s pretty fucking smart, Buck,” Steve replied.

“Are we done? I think we’re done. Captain? Mr. Wilson? I believe we’re done.”

Without waiting for their reply, he spun on his heel and headed straight for his bedroom. Thankfully, by the time he was crying so hard that his entire body was heaving, he was in the shower and the water drowned out the noise.

* * *

“So, last night.”

Tony was quiet. He didn’t want it to be the last night, he knew that. He also knew he was sleeping with the head of one of the most strategically powerful royal houses in Europe and that King James IV had been exceptionally public about his sworn bachelorhood after his divorce.

But Tony wasn’t feeling nauseated over the idea of leaving a king. Bucky had never asked him to join in the part of his life that was official - throne room blowjobs notwithstanding - but Tony had found himself itching to. He knew there were things in Bucky’s life he needed to share with someone and he just hoped that Steve or Becca or Sam fit the bill because he could never get anything out of the Ballyglendorian.

What was even more frustrating to Tony was that he wanted to, if he was frank. This was a fuckbuddy party - the ultimate indulgence for a summer. Gorgeous man, sexually adventurous, kinky as absolute fuck, and kind, funny, and smart to boot - the time restraints were perfect. Tony knew no one could actually be as perfect as Bucky seemed, so if Tony could get out of it all without seeing pain or cracks or anything hard, it could just be a lovely memory of the time his dick nearly chaffed from overuse.

But fucks sake, he caught feelings.

“Last night,” he finally said back. “James?”

“Wow, first name and everything,” Bucky said and Tony could hear the smile. They were spooned - Bucky had wrung two orgasms out of Tony already.

“I’m okay with long distance.”

Bucky was silent and Tony was scared he’d just overstepped a massive boundary.

“I know,” Tony continued, “that wasn’t the original agreement, but this summer has been… wow, it’s been… well, you’ve been here, you know how it’s been and I’m just saying that sometimes contracts get rewritten and I’m ... “

Bucky leveraged weight onto Tony’s hips to flip him onto his back. Bucky then straddled Tony and leaned forward to offer a long kiss. “Boyo, if I were just Jamie Barnes from the back middle a nowhere, I’d have put a ring on your finger three months ago. But I’m not. So the original agreement stands.”

Tony melted into further kisses. When he finally opened his mouth to speak and not kiss, Bucky placed a finger over it. “Non-negotiable, Stark.”

Tony made a split second decision and slipped Bucky’s finger into his mouth. If he only had a few hours left, he was going to use them wisely.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, obviously, they'll go their separate ways and never speak to each other again. *smirk*
> 
> See you next time for when we find out if they ever see each other again. Spoiler? They do.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ... and they lived happily ever after

_“And King James IV of Ballyglendore has announced he will be in attendance -”_

Every molecule of Tony’s body froze. He dove for his phone and opened the secure texting app he had built for MJ and Peter… that he and Bucky got some use out of as well.

_TalkityTalk: Jamie Nowhere_

_Tony: You said you weren’t going to say yes._

He put the phone down, knowing it would most likely be hours before Bucky responded. In the past three months, his body existed in two time zones: Eastern Standard and British Standard. He’d also become quite adept at remembering Bucky’s schedule.

Which had been aided greatly when Bucky’s personal secretary, Darcy Lewis, allowed him to link a version of Bucky’s schedule that didn’t include any details that Tony didn’t have security clearance for, but gave him the general gist of His Majesty’s day.

“J?”

“Yes, Sir?”

“Time, temperature, schedule check.”

“It is 14:05 and approximately 48 degrees Fahrenheit outside. Your schedule is clear until 8pm when you agreed to watch a movie with Colonel Rhodes and his new girlfriend. His Majesty’s schedule is clear at the moment, but this is the usual time allotted for family dinner. Your sister has requested your next ten minutes when you emerge from this project.”

Tony rolled his eyes slightly since he knew what Nat wanted. “Tell her thank you for honoring the new rules and remind her that they were put in place by her wife because I absolutely know that request came with sass.”

Tony went back to work on a code he was trying to write to connect a circuit chip in their new line of phones to a circuit chip in a line of wheelchairs they were developing so that the chairs could be controlled with voice commands. Yes, there were some on the market, but the commands were rudimentary and Tony believed he could make them more AI and less… what they were.

He thought, as he often did, about their conversation on that final night in bed.

_“I don’t have many friends,” Bucky said quietly as he stroked his hands through Tony’s hair. “If you would be willing to keep in touch, I’d like that very much.”_

_Tony stilled for a beat and then leaned into Bucky’s hand. “I would be open to that.”_

_“You paused.”_

_“I’m not good at long distance relationships.”_

_“You haven’t seen Rhodey in six months.”_

_Tony was quiet and weighed his words. “I’m not good at long distance relationships and I’m not sure I can be just your friend if we keep this going.”_

_It was Bucky’s turn to be quiet. “Can you try?”_

_Tony’s heart clenched at Bucky’s tone. It was obvious that the man was trying, within the confines of his obnoxiously confined life, to keep Tony in some fashion. If he didn’t want to keep Bucky back so badly…_

_“Yes.”_

In the three months since he and Peter had returned to New York, he wasn’t actually sure he could calculate how often his mind was present in the city as well. Pepper had been on him since the day they signed the incorporation papers to be better at balance - and he’d achieved something that made both of them happy. When she and Nat had finally stopped dancing around each other, he’d made more time for the three of them to figure out how to do family. When they came up with the plan for Peter, he reorganized his life again. But for sixteen years, he’d had a fairly steady rhythm.

And Bucky Barnes blew it all to shit.

All his vocal statements about Bucky being a friend who he fucked a bit and nothing more were lies and everyone knew it. He was about four degrees north of full mope and as holidays began to approach, he knew he’d only get worse. Whenever they talked about Thanksgiving activities for the company or the family, Tony itched to have Bucky involved - he’d love how they did Thanksgiving. Whenever Peter mentioned that he and MJ had fallen asleep with each other on video chat, Tony had to stop himself from asking how her dad was, even though he and Bucky had just talked. No level of information was enough.

Not when he was in love.

Not when the differences between what he’d felt for everyone before Bucky and what he felt now were arithmetic to calculus.

“Sir?” Jarvis interrupted Tony’s line of thought.

“Pepper?” Tony replied.

“Affirmative, Sir. May I patch her through?”

“Did she actually give you an option? Wow, Boss is feeling generous,” Tony muttered to himself. “Sure, J.”

_“Did he tell you?”_

“And a good afternoon to you as well, Virginia.”

_“Did. He. Tell. You.”_

Tony sighed. “I just heard it from the news, but I assumed you knew.”

_“Evidently the planners knew and thought we did and didn’t tell us.”_

“Well, in their defense, it’s not like we’ve disclosed that I’ve been begging him to bring MJ as a birthday gift to Peter and he keeps turning me down. So they probably just thought it was no big deal.”

_“The King of Ballyglendore has never attended a U.S. based charity event, Anthony. Ever. In the history of diplomatic relations between our countries.”_

“Oh.”

_“And the Crown has chosen to break that tradition for the Carbonell Cabaret.”_

“Yes, I’m tracking with you now, Pep,” Tony said as he pinched the bridge of his nose. What was Bucky thinking?

 _“He’ll be bringing the Princess, his Chief of Staff, and his Captain of the Guard, as well as a small security entourage_ ,” Pepper said, as though she was reading off a piece of paper.

“Well, I doubt he travels anywhere without Steve, and Steve doesn’t seem to go many places without Sam.”

_“They’ve asked to retain a local security firm to guard the crown jewels Princess Michelle will be wearing specifically.”_

“Well, the MJ and Peter fanblogs are going to have a field day with this,” Tony muttered.

_“They were photographed exactly three times, I don’t -”_

“They paired me and you within four minutes of the public filing, Pep, you know how people are.”

_“My son is -”_

“Now public property and I’m sorry. We’ve been over this, Pep.”

He heard her sigh reverberate throughout the workshop. _“So he didn’t tell you first?”_

“No,” Tony affirmed.

_“Okay. Well, if you hear from him on details or, I don’t know, what the hell a bodeharan is, let me know.”_

Tony snoted. “It’s pronounced bore-on, and it’s a drum. It means Michelle is planning on signing up for the open mic bidding portion.”

_“Got it, okay.”_

The Carbonell Cabaret had started as a team morale event in the early days of the company. Well, it had really started when Tony had issued a dare. He was an excellent piano player, but rarely played in public. Their administrative assistant was a wonder woman named Lindsay and she asked Tony how much money they’d have to pay him to make him play at the Christmas party. He said at least a thousand dollars to charity, entirely as a joke.

Motherfuckers had raised three, and the Cabaret was born.

In the fifteen years since the company went public, it had grown into the most exclusive charity fundraising event in the world. Tickets were capped to 125 people and they paid a $5,000 donation directly to an approved charity for the privilege of being inside. Phones were confiscated and the rest of the night was an open mic talent show. If you were willing to go on stage, you signed up and put your min “bid” for how much would have to be raised before you’d go on stage.

Tony and Pepper had a professional film crew inside to film each performance so that the person themselves would have a full copy of whatever happened. The public assumed it was raunchy and inappropriate, but it was more likely that someone shared a deeply personal story and cried as they did their performance.

If MJ was bringing the bodhran, she was going to bring down the house and no one would see her coming.

“Let your kid know his girl is coming,” Tony said.

 _“He needs new shoes,_ ” Pepper muttered, mostly to herself.

“Get him in with Giancarlo and he’ll make sure the kid looks good.”

_“Tony -”_

“I’m fine, Pep.” He knew that tone.

_“But -”_

“Virginia Anne.”

_“Fine. Family dinner on Sunday?”_

“I’ll make the gravy. Tell Nat to make sure she has the right meat for the meatballs.”

_“There’s different kinds of meat for meatballs?”_

“You married into an Italian family 18 years ago, Virginia. How are we still having these conversations?”

_“Because they make you so angry when we do. Love you, Tony. Please sleep.”_

She hung up before he could snipe back that he’d be happy to sleep if she could stop being so good at her job and therefore adding things to his to-do list. He was about to grab his soldering iron again when a text tone rang throughout the workshop.

“Read it, J.”

“I meant to tell you, Tones, I really did,” Jarvis read Bucky’s text, “but Darcy put it in the brief before I could.”

Tony was silent for a moment. “Can you call him, please?”

A few seconds later, Bucky’s face filled the hologram in front of Tony. “Hi,” the other man said, with both a smile and a yawn.

“Hi,” Tony felt his whole body loosen a little - like he’d been holding himself together for everyone else and now that Bucky was around, he could calm.

“Meej needs to see Petey.”

Tony cocked an eyebrow. “Is that the only reason you broke a few hundred years of tradition?”

Bucky bit his lip and looked away, which Tony had learned meant he was trying to combine Bucky and James.

“This…” he gestured to himself and to Tony, “is killing me slightly and you’ve said the same.”

“I don’t like life without you as much as I like it with you,” Tony confessed firmly. They’d been dancing around these truths for a while, but if Bucky was ready to have the conversation, then so was Tony.

“There are currently fourteen active threats against my life that Steve is monitoring,” Bucky said and Tony blinked a few times. “There are even more against Meej and we found out two days ago that there are a few against you.”

Tony laughed. “Buckybaby, I’ve been -”

“Kidnapped seventeen times from ages 2 to 14, yes, I learned that this morning,” Bucky finished. “All this time, I thought I was protecting you from... “

There was silence between the men as Bucky trailed off. Tony, for reasons mostly unclear to him beyond gut instinct, held the silence.

“I thought the worst parts of this world, all the things I hate, I thought I could never…”

“James,” Tony said quietly, but firmly. “Ask me.”

Bucky blinked and Tony knew he saw tears. “Ask you what?”

“You know what, Your Majesty. Ask me.”

Tony felt Bucky’s eyes rove over his face and settle on his own. “Anthony Edward Carbonnell Stark, does being in my life scare you?”

“No.”

A corner of Bucky’s mouth quirked up at the speed with which Tony answered the question. “Are you willing to explore -”

“Yes.”

“You didn’t let me finish,” Bucky said with a laugh.

“Am I willing to explore what this would look like if we pretended you Jamie Barnes from the ass end of nowhere? Yes. Am I willing to explore how to be step-father to MJ? Yes. Am I willing to see how I look in the crown when I’m not naked and kneeling before you? Yes. Bucky, I am old and tired and done with games. I am in love with you and sure of it. Let’s figure everything else out.”

Now Tony was sure he saw tears.

“Tony, I am old and tired and done with games,” Bucky repeated. “I love you and I am sure of it. If you are willing, then I am, too, and I’m sorry it took me so long to ask.”

“I’ll punish you for it for as long as we both shall live.”

“Bold promises for a man five time zones away,” Bucky said with a smirk.

“Jarvis?” Tony called, without taking his eyes off Bucky. “How fast can the jet be ready?”

“It is at your disposal, Sir,” Jarvis replied.

Tony saw Bucky move and heard the sound that meant he was paging Steve. “Stevie, he said yes. Jet’s inbound.” Tony heard garbled something in Steve’s voice and from the grin on Bucky’s face, it was best friend ribbing and not Captain of the Guard yelling. “Yeah, yeah. Tones, how long can you stay?”

“A night,” Tony said with a sad shrug. “Maybe two?”

“Meej’ll kill me if I don’t ask, but -”

“He’s got a big Academic Decathalon thing next week, but I could bring her back with me and surprise him?”

“See,” Bucky said, “figuring it out.”

“Good thing we’re smart boys,” Tony said.

“I love you,” Bucky said and his face was split with a grin so wide Tony like he could crawl inside that emotion and live there.

Perhaps he would.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you liked the story, I'd love to know! Kudos and comments are life giving. If you're not sure what to say in the comment, know that I take keyboard smashes and emojis as full love. So, if you liked it more than just a kudos, dropping a heart emoji is great and I thank you in advance.
> 
> Find me on [Twitter](http://www.twitter.com/betheflame1) or [Tumblr](http://betheflame.tumblr.com) for more on these yahoos. You can also submit prompts and cajole me into writing faster - it usually works. If you're on Discord, I'm definitely there, too, and probably hanging in the [Put on the Suit Stony Server ](https://discord.gg/z5WSqbS) or the [STB Enthusiasts Stuckony](https://discord.gg/ktXHUb4) one.  
>   
> Oh! And FestiveFerret and I have a [fandom podcast](http://www.podonthesuit.com) if you're so inclined.  
>   
> 


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